7.  According to the applicant’s birth certificate, she is male. She served in the army for three years from the age of 17 and then worked as a police officer. Aged 24, she gave up attempting to live as a man, and had gender reassignment surgery two years later. She has presented as a woman since 1963, is identified as a woman on her National Insurance card and paid contributions to the National Insurance scheme at the female rate (until 1975, when the difference in rates was abolished). In 1972 she became self-employed and started paying into a private pension fund.
8.  By a letter dated 22 August 1997, the applicant applied to the local government benefits office for State pension payments. She wished these to commence on 22 December 1997, her 60th birthday. Her application was refused by a decision of the Adjudication Officer issued on 31 October 1997. He stated that she had applied “too early”, and was only entitled to a State pension from the age of 65, the retirement age applicable to men.
9.  Her appeal against this decision was heard by Birmingham Social Security Appeal Tribunal on 12 March 1998, which dismissed it on the basis of established case-law. At this time she claimed that she was no longer able to work due to a spinal collapse fracture of osteoporotic origin.
10.  On 1 October 1998 the applicant submitted her appeal to the Social Security Commissioner. Leave to appeal was granted but, by a decision of 1 June 2000, her appeal was dismissed following an oral hearing. The Commissioner felt compelled to follow previous decisions and also held that the DSS had not entered into an agreement to treat the applicant as a woman.
11.  In the light of the judgments of 11 July 2002 given by the Grand Chamber in Christine Goodwin v. the United Kingdom ([GC], no. 28957/95, ECHR 2002-VI) and I. v. the United Kingdom ([GC], no. 25680/94), in which the Court found that the Government’s continuing failure to take effective steps to effect the legal recognition of the change of gender of post-operative transsexuals was in breach of Article 8, the applicant wrote to the Office of Social Security on 12 July 2002 asking for her case to be reopened. The Commissioner notified her on 14 August 2002 that leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal had been granted.
12.  On 5 September 2002 the Department for Work and Pensions refused to award the applicant a State pension in light of the judgment in Christine Goodwin.
13.  In the Court of Appeal, the applicant sought, inter alia, a declaration that she was entitled to her full retirement pension from her 60th birthday, and damages for breach of the Human Rights Act 1998, in force from 2 October 2000. Meanwhile, on 22 December 2002, the applicant reached the age of 65 and her pension payments began.
14.  By agreement, her case was adjourned to await the House of Lords judgment in Bellinger v. Bellinger. In that case the claimant, a transsexual, sought a declaration of validity in respect of a marriage contracted following gender reassignment surgery. By a decision of 10 April 2003, their Lordships, whilst finding the Government’s continuing failure to legislate to be a breach of Articles 8 and 12, deemed the formulation of legal norms to remedy that breach best left to Parliament ([2003] WLR 1174). Further, the House of Lords disapproved of attempts to seek recognition even in the clearest cases on the basis that (a) eventually a line would have to be drawn and (b) such demarcation required detailed consideration by the legislature of the likely social consequences. Following this decision, the applicant was advised by her legal representative that the prospects of persuading the Court of Appeal to depart from the Bellinger judgment, and thus of obtaining an effective remedy, were nil. If proceedings were continued, she would further risk punitive costs orders. Accordingly, the applicant consented to a court order dismissing her appeal with no order as to costs. The Government further refused to make any ex gratia payment of a sum representing her lost State pension.
15.  On 26 April 2005 the applicant was issued with a Gender Recognition Certificate following her application under the Gender Recognition Act 2004 which had come into force on 1 July 2004 (see paragraphs 30-31 below).